Life is make believe, fantasy given form

Happy Endings (or NOT)

When I first starting writing, I received wise advice: Read!

Unfortunately, reading was something I had few minutes to indulge in. I saved books for vacations, voraciously gobbling them down at the exclusion of other pastimes. That scrimping for minutes ended several years ago when I began writing fulltime. I tap out my own stories during the day and rabidly consume the books of others into the night’s wee hours.

I’ve been reading fantasy, my genre, and spoiling myself with completed series. I hate waiting years for the next book and, frankly, don’t have the memory for it. By the time George Martin comes out with the next installment of his A Song of Ice and Fire series, I’ll have forgotten all the details that thread through the story and make it a rich read.

Starting that series wasn’t the only mistake I’ve made. Patrick Rothfuss is killing me with his fabulous Kingkiller Chronicles. Never again, I say. It amounts to reader-torture. And, I’ll tell you, after this long wait, the story better end happily! Which brings me to the point of this post…

I just inhaled two trilogies, Mark Lawrence’s The Broken Empire series and Robin Hobb’s Farseer Trilogy. I loved both and highly recommend them (lots of stars). However – slight spoiler alert here – neither series ends on what I’d call a happy note. A sense of peace, yes, but happy? Nope.

A friend told me that we endure a large dose of wrenching evil in the books we read because we get that incredible high when our protagonists prevail. We like the white hats to come out on top, their pain and sacrifice rewarded. We want to savor that last page and shout, “Yes!” not, “Oh, well.”

Perhaps it’s the blight of our times that we don’t expect happily-ever-after, can’t imagine it, even in our fantasies.

Lawrence’s and Hobb’s trilogies are beautifully written, compelling, and emotionally loaded, the characters richly textured and unforgettable. The reality of the human experience plays out in their lives, despite the fantasy worlds they inhabit. I love that, truly, but once in a while, I wouldn’t mind closing a book with a smile.

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4 thoughts on “Happy Endings (or NOT)”

I can so relate. I love getting immersed in a series, but I inhale them so fast that they need to be complete before I start. I know I’m missing some great reads while I wait, but I’ll catch up when the time is right.

I gave up on the Inheritance Trilogy by Christopher Paolini when I had to wait for the last book after Brisingr. I had completely forgotten all the details and whilst everybody else was rereading hungrily I decided that I wouldn’t do it. I couldn’t. It was too painful!

Hello there! This is my 1st comment here so I just wanted to give a quick shout out and say I genuinely enjoy reading your articles.
Can you suggest any other blogs/websites/forums that cover the same topics?
Thank you!

Thanks for the shout out! I have to admit that I don’t follow too many blogs and some of the ones I loved disappeared; that seems to happen a bit. Here are a couple that I’ve enjoyed a bit – http://www.mistressandhermuse.wordpress.com and http://www.hokeahoscar.wordpress.com (his unexplainable spirit posts). As with most blogs a certain post will catch me and then I’ll drift off. Hope that helps. Thanks again.